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Rose McGowan Instagram winds down month of powerful survivor stories

With #NOvember, the actress wanted to give "a voice to the voiceless, enabling unheard survivor's stories" on her Instagram account.

Bonnie Burton
Journalist Bonnie Burton writes about movies, TV shows, comics, science and robots. She is the author of the books Live or Die: Survival Hacks, Wizarding World: Movie Magic Amazing Artifacts, The Star Wars Craft Book, Girls Against Girls, Draw Star Wars, Planets in Peril and more! E-mail Bonnie.
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Bonnie Burton
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Rose McGowan has turned her Instagram into a platform for abuse survivors. 

 Rose McGowan/Instagram

Sharing a story about surviving sexual abuse, or any other personal trauma, is never easy. 

But actress and activist Rose McGowan, an outspoken figure in the #MeToo movement, wants to offer "a voice to the voiceless" by turning her personal Instagram account into a platform where survivors can share their stories.  

Using the hashtag #NOvember, survivors from around the world have been sharing their thoughts about the power of the word "no," and McGowan has collected them and posted some to her Instagram, which has 602,000 followers. 

The contributors are female, male, trans, queer and straight. One said no to thoughts of suicide, another to self-hatred about being gay. Another has learned to say no, to all sorts of things, without feeling guilty. 

"I want to use my privilege to share other people's experiences to show that we all count, we all have a voice to say no," McGowan said in a statement. "This is about inspiring other people to use their high profiles for a new kind of volunteerism."

View this post on Instagram

As of tomorrow I’m handing over my page to YOU and your voices. I have the privilege of visibility that many others doing great things deserve. The wave of change that has swept the globe can not be credited solely to the famous or the celebrities. They (myself included) may have gotten the press or the headlines but the power came from YOU. Sharing your stories. Your truth. We are equal to each other in validation and importance no matter what. Thank you for supporting my work and page, it’s really been beautiful sharing this journey with you. I can’t wait to showcase your unapologetic truths every day this month! And for this worried that they won’t get updates, it’s ok! I’ll be posting to IG stories and midway I’ll do a permanent IG post as well. #NOvember #lovewins #rosearmy #educatedonthate #unapologetic #wepower #activism #lgbtq #rosemcgowan #yeswecan

A post shared by Rose McGowan (@rosemcgowan) on

McGowan's entertainment credits include starring in The WB supernatural drama series Charmed from 2001-2006 and Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino's double-feature film Grindhouse in 2007. These days, she's also well known as one of movie mogul Harvey Weinstein's accusers. In 2017, Time magazine recognized McGowan as one of the Silence Breakers, the magazine's Person of the Year, for speaking out about sexual assault and harassment.

"I get asked a lot if I've really seen a change, I have," McGowan said in a statement. "I started seeing a pattern, I noticed that over the course of the last 13 months, the intense stories I was receiving in my DMs were shifting -- those at the beginning of the year are very different to those I've received at the end of the year."

The #NOvember stories McGowan has posted to her Instagram this month are filled with determination and defiance.  

"So many of people's tragedies have been replaced by stories of triumph," McGowan added. "Triumphs small and big. It's been an amazing thing to see."

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